English Literature key terms

A moral obligation to care for someone or to answer for the consequences of one’s actions.

Returning something taken or making good a wrong; Major Sholto asks his sons to restore Mary Morstan’s share of the treasure.

A narrative method that limits readers to a particular character’s knowledge or perceptions. Much of Jekyll and Hyde follows Utterson’s incomplete understanding.

Restraint or reluctance in revealing information, feelings or thoughts. In fiction, it can characterise a speaker and leave important matters unexplained.

Punishment understood as deserved repayment for wrongdoing.

A return to earlier events through narration or a character’s recollection.

An account told after the events have happened, allowing the narrator to look back and comment with later knowledge.

Storytelling that looks back on earlier events. The narrator can combine remembered experiences with understanding gained later.

A narrator who tells events after they have happened and can judge them with hindsight. The older Pip looks back on his younger self.

The gradual disclosure of earlier events through dialogue, allowing an audience to reconstruct what happened.

A speaker’s account of past experiences, told from a later point in their life.

Lively, noisy celebration, especially involving drinking, singing and dancing.

Retaliation against someone who has caused injury or harm, usually driven by personal anger rather than impartial judgement.

A major reversal in a character’s situation or fortunes. The trial reverses Shylock’s position from claimant to someone facing punishment.

A new production of a play that has been performed before.

A fundamental change in who holds power and how a society is organised, often involving the overthrow of an existing government.

The techniques used to make speaking or writing persuasive, including direct address, rhetorical questions and repetition.

A question used to make a point or persuade, rather than simply to obtain an answer.

The pattern of end rhymes in a poem, represented by letters. Each stanza of Envy follows AABCCB.

Two successive lines of verse whose endings rhyme.

The financial and commercial heart of Venice, where merchants conducted business and exchanged news.

A symbol representing a promise or relationship. The rings in The Merchant of Venice connect material objects with love, memory and fidelity.

A change in the expected relationship between characters, such as children becoming moral teachers to their parents.

A comedy centred on lovers overcoming obstacles and misunderstandings, usually reaching a happy resolution.

A literary and artistic movement that values emotion, imagination and the power of nature. Frankenstein’s mountain scenes connect natural grandeur with intense personal feeling.

Love presented through emotional attachment, affection and a desire for a relationship with another person.

A character whose exceptional ambition drives them beyond human, natural or moral limits, with destructive consequences. Victor’s pursuit of creative power makes him a Romantic overreacher.